Prevalence,
Abuse & Exploitation of Street Children In the first decade of the 21st
Century gvnet.com/streetchildren/Trinidad&Tobago.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
and accompanying text have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in Trinidad & Tobago.
Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that
are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate
their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspect(s) of street life are of particular
interest to you. You might be
interested in exploring how children got there, how they survive, and how
some manage to leave the street.
Perhaps your paper could focus on how some street children abuse the
public and how they are abused by the public … and how they abuse each
other. Would you like to write about
market children? homeless children? Sexual and labor exploitation? begging? violence? addiction? hunger? neglect? etc. There is a lot to the subject of Street
Children. Scan other countries as well
as this one. Draw comparisons between
activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Help needed for
street children in T&T [PDF] Hayden Mills,
Trinidad & Tobago Express, January 2nd 2005 [accessed 19
February 2015] Gittens told the Sunday
Express there were basically two types of street children in She explained that
the lure of money kept them on the streets.
By begging and doing odd jobs, a street child can make between $80 and
$100 in one day, said James-Ransom.
"Soft-hearted women rarely turn them away," she said. One street child who spoke with the Sunday
Express two Wednesdays ago said money was the reason why he had left Credo
Foundation and vowed never to return.
The boy, who said he was 12 and named Arnold, said: "I went there
with ah hundred dollars and when ah ask them for it the next morning they didn't
want to give mih so I take my things and
gone." These children felt
a sense of freedom on the streets-there are no authority figures, no rules,
no chores, no responsibility and no structure to be assimilated into,
James-Ransom explained. More compelling
was their desire to be away from "a home" which, to them, was the
source of their problems, she added.
But the stark reality, as painted by WPC Elizabeth Daniel of the City
Police, is that children often run from the frying pan into the fire. ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2006 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor [PDF] www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/tda/tda2006/Trinidad_and_Tobago.pdf [accessed 1 January 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children in CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - In August 2006,
the Ministry of Social Development published the Revised National Plan of
Action for Children, which includes specific goals for combating commercial
sexual exploitation of children and exploitive child labor. The National
Steering Committee for the Prevention and Elimination of Child Labor, with
the advice and support of the ILO, is participating in a project to withdraw
and rehabilitate child laborers at two landfill sites in Trinidad and Tobago. Human Rights
Reports » 2008 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119175.htm [accessed 11 February 2020] CHILDREN
- A
lack of funds and expanding social needs challenged the government's ability
to carry out its commitment to protect the rights and welfare of
children. Education is
compulsory up to the age of 12, and public education is free for all
elementary and secondary students up to the age of 20. Some parts of the
public school system failed to meet the needs of the school-age population
due to overcrowding, substandard physical facilities, and occasional
classroom violence. SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] The minimum legal age for workers is 12 years. Children from 12 to 16
years of age may work only in family businesses. Children under the age of 18
may work legally only during daylight hours, with the exception that 16- to
18-year-olds may work at night in sugar factories. The Ministry of Labor and
Small and Micro Enterprise Development and the Ministry of Social Development
are responsible for enforcing child labor provisions. The Protection
Project - Trinidad & The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/trinidad.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Child labor is a
problem in Local group on
mission to rescue street children Verdel Bishop, Trinidad
& Tobago's Newsd@y, December 22 2008 www.newsday.co.tt/features/0,92236.html [accessed 1 August
2011] Street children are
often beaten, scorned and neglected and are looked upon as nuisances. They
are prone to sexual abuse, infections, and drug addictions and although it
may seem like no one cares, Operation Rescue Street Children (ORST) is on a
mission to save these youngsters. “Public perceptions of street children is ridiculous. There
are some people that never consider how these children, as young as seven and
eight years old, are left on the streets. It is of no fault of theirs. “We have heard so many horror stories from
street children. Some of them come from abused institutions, entrusted by the
state to care for them, yet these same institutions abuse them, sexually,
verbally, mentally and physically. We hear so many stories . . . stories
which we are sure go uninvestigated.” Govt must care for
street children Keino Swamber,
Trinidad & Tobago's Express, August 25th 2007 streetchildrennews.wordpress.com/2007/08/25/govt-must-care-for-street-children/ [accessed 9 January
2017] "These
children, who become young people, do so without any sense of purpose or
value to their own lives or the lives of others, thus making this growing
population of street children and incubator for the development and nurturing
of criminal activity." SEBA said
everything must be done to generate a sense of pride and self-esteem in these
young individuals. Strengthen social
services in Budget Rhondor Dowlat,
Trinidad & Tobago's Newsd@y, August 20 2007 www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,62686.html [accessed 1 August
2011] Street children who
range from the age of three to seventeen spend their days begging. At nights,
they go to any of the parks in and around the city, including Boys stay positive
after fire Trinidad & At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 1 August
2011] Unstable families,
homelessness and abuse are parts of these boys' stories. They found refuge in
the three-storey building on Nelson Street in Port of Spain. And then
there was the fire. It totally destroyed the loft and top storey of the
building. The boys' dormitory along with all of their personal effects went
up in smoke. "All they were left with was the clothes on their
backs," Sr Roberta O'Flaherty, executive
director of the centre, told the Sunday Express. All I want for
Christmas Rhondor Dowlat,
Trinidad & Tobago's Newsd@y, December 14 2006 www.newsday.co.tt/news/0,49144.html [accessed 1 August
2011] Since Kicks was
seven years old he has roamed the streets of Port-of-Spain. He ventured out
after his mother died of cancer. His father, Kicks said, was not able to
raise him and six other siblings.
“After my mother died of cancer my father got another woman leaving us
behind. It hurt me so much that I could not stay home, I had to go out there
(the streets) to fend for myself and my brothers and sisters,” Kicks said. Kicks described
living on the streets as hard, but said that “at the end of the day” he and
the other street children he made friends with, over the years, were left
with no other choice. “Yes, I too got
caught up with the wrong. I was introduced with smoking weed at age eight and
ever since I do it. I do not abuse it but I still do it, I really can’t help
myself, at least that allows my mind to be peaceful just for a moment,” Kicks
said. “I really do wish to change but
I desperately need help and I see other children my age that also need help.
I also tried to kill myself once because I could not stand the pressure,” he
added. “I wish sometimes
that everyday could be Christmas, the music, the toys, the decorations and
most of all the food. I sit on the pavement sometimes and look at children my
age or younger with their moms — hand in hand — I would then close my eyes
and imagine I am that child holding onto my mother’s hands walking down the
streets,” Kicks said with tears rolling down his cheeks. “Too much pain, all I want for Christmas
is my mummy, that is all I want. I want to be held
by her, hugged and kissed. Having her in my heart is ok but I want her back
from her grave,” Kicks said. Who Controls the
Media and Crime? A. A. Hotep, Editorial, Trinidad & Tobago News, April 24,
2005 www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/Editorial/240405.html [accessed 1 August
2011] The mainstream
media only took up the issue of street children after we broke the story here
in 1996 by encouraging the Mirror newspaper to publish interviews with some
of the street children. Before the story came out, people were condemning our
claim that there even are children who live on the streets. As soon as the
mainstream press picked up the story, they did exactly as the children
predicted; they ran a sensationalized story, resulting in the government
rounding up a few street children. In the government's view, picking up a few
kids solved the problem. The street children knew better, as they had already
told me that was the very reason they did not want the media taking up their
plight. The children felt they were better off living in the shadows of
society, withstanding the abuses that come with living in the streets. For anyone not
familiar with how truly gruesome it was for these children, consider six and
seven year olds being raped for fast food. One case I followed closely
involved a wealthy white male. He used to pick up a few children, taking them
to his home for sex. For this he would give them
boxes of fried chicken. One child, after having been brutally raped in a
similar encounter, was left for dead in the Queens Park Savannah. – sccp All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin,
"Street Children – Trinidad & |
